Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum Earn Top Albums of 2011

The numbers have been calculated, and it's official: 2011 was a good year for music. It was an especially good year for Jason Aldean and Lady Antebellum, whose 2011 album releases were the fifth and tenth top-selling albums of the year, respectively.

Adele's '21' tops the list, compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, with 5.82 million records sold. That's twice the sales of the No. 2 best-selling album of the year, Michael Bublé's 'Christmas.' New projects by Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne follow, with Jason's 'My Kinda Party' rounding out the Top 5 with 1.58 million albums sold this year (with total sales of more than 2 million).

"My goal has always been to find great songs," said Jason at the Billboard Country Music Summit last year. "Then we get into the studio and those songs take their shape. We never go in and plan to cut a rock album or a really traditional country record. We get into the studio and play them and make them sound like us."

Lady Antebellum's 'Own the Night' sold 1.2 million units to justify its spot at No. 10. "It's been a dizzying and exciting few months launching this album," Lady A's Dave Haywood admitted back in November. "But it's also really energizing to see how the fans are reacting to some of the songs on our new record. The reaction both in the States and overseas has been a huge confidence booster as we are getting ready to launch our first big arena tour ... We couldn't be more excited to get back out on the road."

Country acts weren't the only ones with good fortune in 2011. According to Billboard, albums sales rose in the U.S. for the first time since 2004. Granted, it was only a one percent boost, but that's substantial when it equates to more than four million records. Additionally, CD sales were down six percent in 2011, while digital album downloads increased by 20 percent to a record 103.1 million units.